July/August Magazine Foreword

As many of you will know, for almost three months I was unable to drive, for medical reasons, and I have been reflecting on that experience. Firstly, there are huge thanks due to all those, in the congregation and beyond, who ferried me from place to place; secondly, there are huge thanks due to all those who walked Bella, again from the congregation and beyond, especially to my neighbours, who latterly took on that job fulltime and walked Bella when they walked their own dog.

Thirdly, one of the things which concerned me most was my loss of independence – which I really value, my feelings of impotence, and my need to depend on other people; it isn’t something I am used to having to do. But where does God come in to all this, and what have I learnt from it? That’s a more difficult question. It’s more than probable that I needed a knock on the head to alert me to the fact that I don’t and never can operate alone, doing it all myself. Yes, of course I know that I need to live in God as God lives in me, and that the God space in me is of supreme importance. But I’m equally aware, which I suspect is maybe the case for a good number of us, that I can, and do, on numerous occasions, ignore that fact and go my own sweet way regardless.

So my resolve is to “check-in” with God more often than I have been wont to do throughout the day, so that I may learn to see the world more fully from God’s eyes and not from my own, sometimes distorted, view, and hopefully, act more of the time in God’s way rather than my own.

As the holidays begin I want to wish you all a very happy enjoyable blessed time of refreshment and re-creation and look forward to seeing you all after the holidays, fit, bouncing and raring to go.